How to Analyze Art | Visual and Contextual Analysis

The word analysis is one we hear all the time, but it becomes tricky to define.

And so therefore analysis becomes a scary word.

But, this video is here to help.

Maybe you're going to a museum and you don't want to be bored out of your mind.

Or maybe you're trying to impress someone.

Or let's be honest, you have a paper due tomorrow morning and it's past midnight.

I'm here to help, whatever your situation might be.

This is a quick introduction into how to analyze and talk about art.

After watching this video, you're going to have all the skills you need to feel comfortable talking about art like a pro.

Before we get started, make sure you subscribe to this channel and hit the bell icon off to the side to get notified of new art history videos that that I post each week.

In my videos, you'll often see me applying these skills from this video to famous artworks or art movements.

There are two main branches of art analysis, visual and contextual.

Now I'll be covering both in this video, and I will be showing you examples along the way.

And how to incorporate these skills into actual artworks.

There is a lot going on in both of these.

So I'm going to include an outline off to the side here so that you can follow along and know where we are.

Let's start with the easier of the two.

Visual art analysis.

This is everything you can see in the piece.

Now visual art analysis has two parts.

It covers one, the content and two, the form of the art piece.

Content is the what.

What is being included in this piece?

Is there a story being told?

Is it religious, symbolic, abstract?

What are you looking at?

What do you see?

What is happening in this piece?

You can often guess correctly what is going on.

Let's try a few.

This piece is called the coronation of Napoleon.

It's by Jacques Louis David.

Now, looking at this piece, there's a lot going on.

Let's see what we can figure out.

What is happening?

So my eyes kind of leading towards the center here.

I'm assuming that's the focus.

So I'm going to look here.

I can see some religious figures.

A man with some sort of Catholic or Christian hat.

Oh, there's a cross for sure.

Okay, they're Christian and religion.

There's a man there holding a crown and a woman kneeling.

Okay, crowns, women kneeling.

This is a coronation.

If you didn't get it from the title.

So this is the crowning of somebody famous.

Now it says the coronation of Napoleon.

There's one Napoleon that I know that's famous.

Uh, he's French.

But what's interesting about this piece is he already has a crown on his head.

And he's crowning a girl.

So is it the coronation of Napoleon or somebody else?

There's obviously a story happening here.

You can see there's lots of different characters.

Some people have interesting looks on their faces.

I think the what is maybe something went wrong.

What's going on in this piece?

Okay, this piece is called The Kiss.

And I can clearly see that's what's happening here.

But it does look a little bit more abstract.

I think as I look at it though, I can see there are two figures.

One's a male and one's a female.

I think I can tell that she's a female.

Uh, the hair's a little wavvier.

Oh, look, it goes all the way down her back.

She's got like a bulbous belly.

Um, so I think that's a female.

Those bands around them look like arms.

They're kind of holding it in the back.

So it's a couple embraced in a kiss.

But they share an eye, but they don't.

Clearly it's an intimate moment that we're looking at here.

That's the what.

That's the content.

Okay, next piece.

This one's called the Lakshmana Temple.

Luckily these titles are pretty helpful.

So now I know this is a temple.

But if I didn't have that title, I think I could figure out it was an important structure.

There's a lot going on here.

Um, it looks overly decorated.

Every structure, every part of the structure is really decorated.

Um, I can see like three main spires, maybe.

With one in the center.

I know three is kind of a symbolic number.

So even if I didn't have the title, I might know that this is sacred space of some sort.

But I want to zoom in on some of this decoration that's happening.

So there's a lot of figures decorating this surface.

I wonder if they're gods or goddesses or something of that sort.

They're very curvy in their bodies and they kind of look as if they're from the country of India.

Everything is decorated.

It's beautiful.

It's really pretty.

Yeah, I think these are probably some Hindu, but it's type of religion in India.

So I think Hindu.

But yeah, those wavy bodies that kind of gives that away.

Gods or goddesses, I don't know, but they look sacred.

But they also look very connected and in love.

So maybe this is a temple of love that we're looking at.

Um, that's kind of the what of what's going on.

Oh, I see elephants.

Cute.

So these are just three quick examples.

Totally different.

We've got painting, sculpture, architecture.

And we can look at it and we can decide what is it that we're looking at.

What do we see?

And from there we can start to draw some conclusions.

Okay, so content is the first aspect of visual art analysis.

The what of the piece.

What is happening?

The second aspect of visual art analysis is form.

This is the how.

How was this piece created?

What are the elements that went into it to design it?

What decisions did the artist make?

How was this done?

There are two aspects of form.

First, the elements of art, second, the principles of design.

So what are the art elements?

There's seven.

Line, shape, form, value, texture, color, and space.

These are pretty straightforward, but the most important thing is these are things you can actually see in the piece.

For more details on each of these elements, you can download my art analysis PDF linked in the description below.

The second aspect of form are the principles of design.

These are the foundational principles of art.

That almost every artist will use.

There are 10 principles.

Balance, emphasis, movement, pattern, repetition, proportion, rhythm, variety, unity, and scale.

Once again, for more details on each of these, download my art analysis PDF in the description below.

When it comes to form, again, these are very straightforward.

These are things you can see.

You can tell if there's balance.

You can see the lines and how they intersect.

Are they vertical or are they horizontal?

And how does that affect the piece of art?

That is art analysis.

Trying to figure out what you see and what you can derive from it.

What meaning can you pull?

To recap visual art analysis.

Remember you're looking for the what and the how.

Now there's a lot.

And I don't expect you to memorize them all.

But pick a couple that stand out to you.

Perhaps color.

That's very easy to see.

What colors are being used?

Why did the artist choose to paint the clothing green instead of blue?

Perhaps emphasis.

Where does your eye go when you first look at the piece?

Why is the artist putting it there?

Why is the emphasis off to the side instead of right in the middle of the piece?

Or maybe remember scale.

This piece seems huge.

Why did the artist paint it so large instead of small?

You seriously cannot go wrong here.

If you see it, then it's there.

Let's move on to the second branch of art analysis.

Contextual.

This one is a little trickier.

It might require you to look up a few things.

Like the history surrounding the artwork.

But if you don't have time to do that, art gives you a lot of clues into the context.

That can be easily accessed.

There are two ways you can contextually analyze a piece.

One, the function or the purpose of the piece, and two, the context or the historical surroundings.

So the function is all about figuring out the purpose of the art piece.

This is one step further than the what.

Once you figured out the what.

Now you got to figure out the why.

This is what I see.

Why is the artist depicting this?

What is the purpose of this piece?

Some artwork function examples might be, is this a commemorative work of art, is it politically driven, used for worship?

A way to personally express something.

Is it used for decoration or utility?

What is the purpose?

Try and figure it out.

Let's look at those images again and talk about the potential purpose.

Let's pull up that coronation of Napoleon piece here.

We've already figured out the what.

Somebody is being crowned.

Now, what's the purpose?

Why would somebody want to show the crowning?

Why would they want to have all of these people here?

Including Catholic priests.

Maybe that's the Pope.

I'm going to say this is politically driven.

Knowing who Napoleon was and how he rose to become the emperor of France.

I'm going to say this is a political push to show authority.

And to sustain his power as emperor of France.

Let's pull up the kiss by Brancusi.

This one's a little trickier.

Abstract art really is.

Is this a commemorative piece?

Is it to commemorate something?

Maybe it's showing worship of worshiping this couple.

Maybe this is just something to beautify and decorate a space.

Or perhaps a personal expression.

I kind of like the idea of personal expression and worship with this one.

Maybe he's worshiping a personal expression.

It's beautiful.

All right, Lakshmana Temple.

We already know this is a temple.

This one's easy.

Worship.

That's what this is for.

Uh, it's a sacred space, so worship of some kind, whether it's a deity worship or an idea that they're worshiping.

This is a temple.

So those are examples of how you can figure out the function.

The second way to analyze a work contextually is to figure out the history that surrounds it.

The context is the original and subsequent historical, political, and social environment in which this piece was created and resides in.

This is trickier to know and often you can't pull from just looking at the piece.

This is the dates, the who, the where, the patrons, the politics surrounding this.

The religious fervor that was happening.

Let me give you a little hint.

Maybe you should be reading those plaques on the walls at museums that they post next to the pieces.

Everything that went into the creation of this piece and everything surrounding it.

That is context.

That's the history of art history.

Luckily for you, art comes with a lot of context clues to help you figure it out.

First, look at the date of the piece.

When was this created?

Was it created during a war, a political uprising?

Perhaps a moment of religious fervor.

What do you know about this date?

What was happening in the world at this time?

Next, look at the artist's names.

Does one that sounds familiar?

What do you know about that person?

Were they part of an art movement?

Maybe they're just famous.

Next, think about its location or the culture that surrounds it.

Does the artist name sound French?

There's a clue.

Does the piece look Asian?

Maybe these can help you figure out the meaning behind the actual artwork.

Okay, let's try this with an example.

This image is called Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park by Diego Rivera.

There's a lot going on here.

So I'm just going to talk through it.

First of all, what is happening?

Based on the title, the word dream makes it seem like this is not a real landscape.

This is not a real group of people that would reside together.

It's an afternoon in a park.

So there's just a lot of people here.

Diego Rivera, that name sounds really familiar to me.

I've heard it before.

Um, that might be helpful.

It also sounds Hispanic.

My background information is telling me he's probably from Mexico.

And the date 1946.

Okay, so just chronological timeline, this is right at the end of World War II.

So we're on the cusp of the Cold War, there's atomic bombs.

There's a lot of conspiracy, there's communism.

And the rise of the middle class.

That's kind of the historical context that is happening here.

Now I'm going to look at the what and see if I can derive more context.

I see a lot of figures here and as I look to both sides.

They span like a huge time period.

I see what looks to be older people.

I see Sor Juana.

I know her.

She's pretty cool.

Um, I see Frida right in the center.

We recognize her as an icon.

I see people of different social classes.

You can see military, you can see religious.

There's somebody off to the left that looks like an English king of some sort.

So looking at these contextual clues, there's the Mexican flag.

There's a skeleton in the front, which connects to some Mexican culture and history.

Perhaps what we're looking at is a portrait of Mexican history.

With a lot of those Mexican figures that were influential perhaps in the creation of this country.

So based on context clues here.

That's what I think we're looking at.

Now that was a lot.

So let me recap for you the things that we covered.

There are two parts to art analysis.

Visual and contextual.

There are also two parts to visual art analysis.

The what or the content and the how, those art elements and principles of design.

There are also two parts to contextual analysis.

The function or the purpose and then the context, the historical surroundings of the work.

So you're probably thinking, cool, Alder, that's a lot of information.

But how, how do I actually go about analyzing this?

How do I actually talk about this?

I'm glad you asked.

There's three steps.

First, observe, second, interpret, third, synthesize.

First, observe.

Spend time with the piece.

Don't just walk by and glance and say, oh, that's pretty, or oh, that's weird.

Spend time with it.

Stop.

Look at it.

Visually analyze it.

What are you seeing?

How was this created?

What colors are being used?

Are there lines?

Is there balance and harmony or does it feel chaotic?

Look at the piece.

You have to spend time with art in order to analyze it.

Second, interpret.

Once you figured out the what.

Now you can start asking why.

Why did the artist do this instead of this?

What meaning can I pull from this?

What is being conveyed here?

What feelings do I get when I look at this piece?

What conclusions can you draw?

Ask yourself questions and then try to find the answer.

That is the analysis.

Just thinking about something, breaking it down to understand it better.

Third, synthesis.

This means bringing all your ideas together to form an idea or a theory.

Once you've thought about the piece, what's going on, how it was created, as well as the context.

Now you can pull all those ideas together and form your own theory.

What message do you think is being portrayed here?

What's being conveyed?

What personal connection can you pull from it?

What do you think?

That's it.

That's analysis.

Spend time with the piece, observe it.

Make interpretations.

What do you think it means?

And pull all of your ideas together into a synthesis.

What ideas or theories can you come up with about this piece?

There's no wrong way to do it.

Even if it's totally off.

At least it'll mean something to you.

For examples on how to analyze art, just watch the videos in my famous art history paintings playlist.

You'll see me using visual and contextual analysis in those videos.

Also, download my art analysis PDF in the description below.

And try this out for yourself.

Go to a local museum.

Pick a couple of pieces that stand out to you.

Maybe Google a famous artwork that you've been dying to know about.

Find somebody to talk to about it.

And practice.

Analyze.

Interpret.

Try it out.

You will be amazed at how the art transforms and becomes personal to you.

Now, can you do this with all types of art?

Absolutely.

Photography, architecture, painting, sculpture.

It's all the same.

Just get curious.

Go out, look at art and experience it for yourself.

And then tell me about it.

This is the best part of art is the way that you get to share your ideas, your connections, your feelings with somebody else.

So open that comment section.

Tell me about your experience.

Ask me some questions.

Tell me what worked and what didn't.

I want to hear from you.

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And I promise, art just keeps getting better.